Wonder Struck by Brian Selznick

This captivating additional book after Brian Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret is full of interesting turns in words and stunning pictures, which all work together to bring two lives, set fifty years apart, together.


Ben has been deaf in one ear since he was born. Ben doesn't know who his dad is or why he left, and then his mother dies in a car accident and he must live with his aunt and uncle. Wolves chase after him in his dreams, and when he is finally on to something about his father, a freak accident occurs and his world is turned upside down.


Rose has been deaf ever since she can remember, and her dad doesn't understand why she runs away to seek her idol, actress Lilian Mayhew in New York City, or why she refuses to do her lip reading lessons, or why she leaves notes everywhere she goes to get her voice out in the world. She cuts pages out of magazines and newspapers and textbooks to create a 3D models of New York City, which she can see out of her window across the bay of Hoboken, New Jersey.


Both of their lives collide much later, but their journeys start at the same place: the American Museum of Natural History. Ben has longed to visit the museum in Duluth, until he finds a book called Wonderstruck amid his mother's things. It tells about things called Cabinets of Wonders and how to start your own. He already has his own Cabinet of Wonders, and he thinks of it as his little personal "museum box". After his accident, he ends up at the museum in New York City, looking straight at the wolves that star in his nightmares.


Rose runs to New York to see Lillian Mayhew in person, and their relationship may be a little bit surprising. After her encounter goes downhill, she finds herself at the museum in the exhibit of the Cabinet of Wonders.


This book will really get you into the world of those who can't hear, and it pulls you in so deep that you might feel deaf yourself. It helps you understand what deaf people go through and how they live life or how they cope with it. The pictures add an interesting point of view that I haven't seen before, and I loved it. Sometimes it got a little confusing when Ben's story skipped ahead, or left out certain details, but at the end all unanswered questions are wrapped up and will leave the reader thinking.


I personally loved this book, and I recommend it to everyone who stops to listen long enough for me to tell them about it. The thing that caught my eye was the pictures. I went into it not knowing that the characters were deaf, and it just made the story that much more interesting. When some think about books like this, they think of them as boring biographies or autobiographies. This book left you wanting to know more about each story, but don't try and read the stories separately; they don't flow right without the other.